faculty for apt illustration cultivated by his Bible, Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress," and Esop's Fables," and he pos sessed an exhaustless fund of anecdotes which nobody could tell so well or apply so happily as Abraham Lincoln. When he left the bar, after twenty-three years of practice, to become President of the United States, he stood among the first of the legal lights of the State of Illinois.

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But it was in riding the circuit during that quarter of a century, that he was preparing unconsciously for the Presidency. He told me that at the County towns when Court was held, the judge, lawyers, litigants, witnesses, and grand and petit jurors would sit up all night at the hotel, telling stories of things which had happened in the lives of an original frontier people, and he said they were better, more to the point, and infinitely stronger for illustration and the enforcement of argument, than all the stories and anecdotes which were ever invented. Human nature is best studied, public questions are more keenly discussed, character is better exhibited, in the forum of the country grocery or drug store than anywhere else. There gather the elders, more or less wise, the lawyers looking for acquaintances, popularity and clients, and the young men listening and absorbing. Lincoln, with his wonderful gift of humor, anecdote, and argument, was for years the idol of that forum. It was there he learned the lesson, invaluable to him when dealing afterwards with mighty problems of state which required for their solution the support of the people, how to so state his case and make his appeal that it would find a response in the humblest homes in every part of the land.

Lincoln's characteristic as a lawyer was, if possible, to get his client to settle, to bring together antagonists, and to compose their differences. At that early time lawyers habitually encouraged litigation. Lincoln discouraged it, whenever possible. He believed in peace in the family and good will and good neighborhood in the town. He believed it to be a lawyer's duty, and that he was aiding the best interests of his client, to procure a settlement without the expense of litigation. He told an amusing story in this line. He said

farmer came into his office one day insisting on divorce edings being commenced at once. Lincoln said, "What le difficulty?" The farmer answered, "We have got g so well that we are now rich enough to abandon the cabin and we have built a frame house. When the ques▲ came about painting, I wanted it painted white like our ighbors, but my wife preferred brown. Our disputes finally came quarrels. She has broken crockery, throwing it at y head, and poured scalding tea down my back, and I want ▲ divorce." Lincoln said, "My friend, man and wife should live together, if possible, for their own sake and for the children's, and endure a great deal. Now go back, keep your temper, and compromise with your wife. You could not have lived together all these years without learning some basis upon which you can compromise any difficulty; and don't come back for a month." At the end of four weeks the farmer returned and said, "Lincoln, you need n't bring that suit. My wife and I have compromised.' "What is the compromise!" "Well," said the farmer, "we are going to paint the house brown."

Years of diligent study, and this habit, continued from early youth, of expressing his ideas aloud and making speeches alike to trees and to people, made him attractive to the local leaders of his party. His speech when nominated for the Legislature of Illinois, was a model of brevity. It was substantially this: "I am in favor of a protective tariff, a national bank, and internal improvements. If you like my principles, I should be glad to serve you." With the exception of the slavery issue, that speech, made in 1834, seventyfive years ago, has been practically the platform of the Republican party since its formation until to-day.

Lincoln was of slow growth. There was nothing precocious about him. He matured along fine lines, and each year added to his mental stature. He made little impression during his four terms in the Legislature, except for diligence and intelligence. He served one term in Congress. There he displayed the prevailing characteristic of his political life. He expressed his opinions regardless of consequences. The country was

ame for the Mexican War. The American people are always th the President against a foreign enemy. He knew that ar had been provoked in order to take territory away from exico for the extension of slavery. He followed in the lead Tom Corwin and made a vigorous speech denouncing the olicy and purpose of the war. Corwin's speech retired him ermanently from public life, and Lincoln was not again a andidate for the House of Representatives. This quality of is mind, and moral courage, were happily illustrated in the amous joint debates between Douglas and himself. Douglas was the most formidable debater, either in the Senate or on the platform, in the country. He was superbly prepared, equipped with every art of the orator, resourceful beyond anyone of his time, and unscrupulous in the presentation of his own case and the misrepresentation of that of his opponent. There was at that period a passionate devotion, among the people, to the Union, but very little sentiment against slavery. The Union was paramount above everything. There was no disposition to interfere with slavery where it was. The only unity on anti-slavery was against its extension into the Territories. Lincoln prepared his first speech in this debate with great care, and then submitted it to the party leaders who had put him forward and who constituted his advisers. When he came to the sentence, "A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this Government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free,' they unanimously advised him to cut it out. They told him that Douglas would take advantage of it by appealing to the sentiment for the preservation of the Union as paramount to anything else, and that he would charge Lincoln with being in favor of dissolving the Union in order to free the negroes. Lincoln said: "We are entering upon a great moral campaign of education. I am not advocating Mr. Seward's higher law, but I am advocating the restriction of slavery within its present limits, and the preservation of the new Territories for free labor. That is more than immediate success, and on that question we will ultimately succeed." Douglas did attack Lincoln, making this point, as the advisers thought, his main

subject, and it was one of the principal elements in his election. Once more the moral quality and courage of Lincoln came out, when he submitted to his advisers, putting to Douglas the question whether the people of the Territories could exclude slavery by their territorial legislation. Douglas was claiming that it was a great chance for popular sovereignty to repeal the Missouri Compromise of 1820 which prohibited slavery in the Territories, by leaving the question to the people. Lincoln's advisers said, "He will answer, 'Yes.'" "Well," said Lincoln, "by answering 'No,' it will ruin his whole programme. If he answers 'Yes,' that will alienate the South, prevent his nomination for President, and split the Democratic Party." The results were as Lincoln predicted. Douglas was elected Senator. The South bolted the Democratic Convention, the northern half nominating Douglas, the southern half Breckinridge. But what Lincoln did not anticipate, the Republican Party nominated him and he was elected.

None of our Presidents have ever faced such conditions and problems as Lincoln encountered when inaugurated. Five States had already seceded. A Confederate government had been formed, and its whole machinery was in operation with a President, Cabinet, Congress, and Constitution. The arsenals were stripped of arms, the forts of guns, a large number of the ablest army officers were deserting to the Southern Confederacy, but his initial difficulties were with his own household. With the courage born of true greatness, he summoned to his Cabinet, statesmen who had been, for years, national leaders and who were his contestants in the national Convention. As far as possible, he drew them equally from those who had been Whigs and Democrats prior to the formation of the Republican party four years before, and who had come together on the question of the extension of slavery, though they differed upon every other matter of governmental policy. Seward, Chase, and Cameron were household words in the country. The President was hardly known. These strong, cultured, ambitious, and self-centred men, veterans in the public service, regarded with very little respect this homely, uncouth, and almost unknown frontiersman who had,